Pakistan Committing Atrocities on Kashmiris While "Negotiating on their Behalf"

8th October 1998Times of India

LONDON: The Pakistani army intelligence and Pak-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) authorities are committing inhuman atrocities and large scale repression on political parties and workers demanding withdrawal of illegal Pakistani army occupation the area, according to Jammu and Kashmir Human Rights Movement (JKHRM).

In a detailed communication listing specific human rights violations by Pakistan intelligence agencies and PoK police, Justice (Retd) Mohd Akram, president of the JKHRM, has written to the Amnesty International seeking that a human rights team be sent to PoK and northern areas. The Muzzaffarabad based group has said Jammu and Kashmir National Awami Party (NAP) and its students wing, involved in propagating independence
Pakistan and setting up a secular state in Kashmir were facing "terrible victimisation and repression" the state agencies.

Saloom Awan, vice president of NAP had been subjected to inhuman torture by Pakistan ISI and state secret agencies and had to flee the country as his life was in danger, Justice Akram said, adding there were several "examples of physical elimination of political leaders in PoK."

The JKHRM complaint to Amnesty International also said that chairman of the United Kashmir People's National Party (UKPNP), Shaukat Kashmiri, who was abducted by ISI was taken to Afghanistan and released in a remote mountainous area.